


Rumours, or Lack Thereof

by Ridiculosity



Category: Uprooted - Naomi Novik
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Professors, F/M, Or: that tag about the one professor who overshares and the other who shares nothing?, University, but no one knows, everyone knows, i am trash i know i am aware, yes - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-19 02:37:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22003894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ridiculosity/pseuds/Ridiculosity
Summary: The rivalry between the students of Professor Agnieszka and Professor Sarkan was famous. Whether it carried forward in their inter personal lives was a mystery: both Professors said little about their lives, but Professor Agnieszka still said something. And rumour mongering only requires a little bravery on the part of a few students tired of deadlines.
Relationships: Agnieszka/The Dragon | Sarkan
Comments: 20
Kudos: 175
Collections: Uprooted Holiday Fic Exchange 2019





	Rumours, or Lack Thereof

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pride_and_pancakes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pride_and_pancakes/gifts).



> I loved writing this! As you all know thanks to my tumblr, my country has seen intense political upheaval - so it was a trip and a half writing this in the middle of that. It was fun. I love writing university AUs, and I hope pride_and_pancakes likes it.

It wasn’t a very traditional looking building: none of the gothic architecture, and less, even of the new science aesthetic. They were brick facades and low lying roofs, with vines growing on the windows and everything. Students had been congregating over and over again across the day, because it was one of the early days of the semester. First year students milled around, trying to make friends and latching themselves onto the advice of any of the seniors who came by.

“You _have_ to take Professor Agnieszka’s class,” one of the second years recommended. This was taken under due consideration, when one of the third year students reminded everybody that Professor Agnieszka’s classes were generally very “off-beat”, and “unconventional.” Those who liked her classes _loved_ them, and those who didn’t just never liked them.

“She’s got a lot of really cool research ideas,” added someone. “And she makes you work like nothing else, but it’s so different from the way other professors teach. She barely has solid instructions – and I mean, people like Professor Sarkan wouldn’t let you enter the class if you didn’t already know the first rules of magic theory.”

Everyone had some favourites: the fencing classes by Professor Kasia were always fully signed up for. It was hard to get into Professor Alosha’s classes, especially if she opened them for everyone and not for specific years. Professor Ballo was extremely canonical and very set in his ways, no one recommended taking his course unless you wanted to familiarise yourself with old school theory and magic. His reading list was very good, even if his analysis was outdated.

But the classes that had the most number of clashes were always the students of Professor Sarkan and Professor Agnieszka. Although the academic community now respected Professor Agnieszka, it was a hard won respect: she had spent god knows how long convincing them of the validity of her methods. Most of the time, she said she hated needing to convince them – but they needed her, they needed her as much as they needed Professor Sarkan. The two minds singlehandedly responsible for stopping the plague. She was considered a soft option by the more conservative minds in academia, but anyone who took her classes could tell you in no uncertain terms that she demanded a lot from you.

Professor Agnieszka didn’t bother with complicated papers or lectures. Her classes were hands on and complex in their own way, intuitive and intense. On the other hand, Professor Sarkan’s classes were nothing but theory and analysis and more theory and then more analysis. He expected a base level of understanding from everyone, and he expected the laws of magic to work the way they _ought_ to. Even then, as unbending as he was at times, the intensity of his research showed that he was very clearly _open_ to other ideas, no matter how much they frustrated him. It was just as demanding to be in his classes, because he dragged energy and words from inside your body almost constantly.

They said everything was a mystery about Professor Sarkan, who believed in sharing absolutely no personal information about himself. He had once been known to divulge that he lived close to campus, and at another point, it had been understood that he liked a certain kind of ginger tea that his _someone_ (It was unclear whether it was a wife, girlfriend, boyfriend, or even a friend) would make. It was hard to imagine him with friends: he seemed to spend all his time alone. Sometimes, the Proctor Vladimir was found in his office, having a drink. He attended staff meetings, he made a single appearance to the Christmas Party, came for the Harvest Faire, and at times could be found speaking to his colleagues while walking. He never came for sporting events, famously, “not even if someone paid me.” He wasn’t one for any sort of student interactions beyond his office hours; all the seniors warned new students to keep away from him unless it was work related, and even then, always, _always_ during office hours. Three to five on weekdays and never on the weekend.

On the other hand, Professor Agnieszka showed up for everything. Feast days, Christmas time parties, harvest faires, sporting events, poetry recitals, everything. Short of student parties, she was almost too available: she had office hours, but she didn’t hold to them strictly. She loved meeting students over coffee, despite having a preference for tea. She would tell them of some of her recipes, of her home town, and small titbits of her everyday. She clammed up a little when it came to her day to day, but given the opportunity, she could speak about her life before university no end. They knew of her struggles with her magic, of the amount of time she had spent in the wood, of how she had struggled when she first came into academic work – and it was only because of the work she had done with the Green Plague that she had survived. She liked talking about her life as long as she didn’t have to give too much away of her that wasn’t _work._ The TAs who were closer to her got more: but mostly she stuck to explaining her work and its impact, on how she had stumbled upon it. She would stumble at times – that’s how they knew she had a really good recipe for tea which she wouldn’t share, since it was the favourite of her boyfriend or husband. She’d been known to call Professor Kasia “Kassy” in front of students, which had given all of them a thrill they didn’t expect. It was unreal to think of Professors with lives of their own, and Professor Kasia having a _nickname_ was beyond any of them.

They knew enough about Professor Agnieszka. They knew a bit about her husband or boyfriend, but she never _ever_ spoke of him. If there even _was_ a him. People said she had mentioned someone in a romantic capacity at times – and what seemed to be commonly understood was that the person in question was a grumpy person. Other information that was gleaned about this person was:

  1. He was a good cook, better than her. Only he made fancy recipes, which she hated.
  2. He was an _excellent_ dancer. He even knew renditions of folk dances.
  3. He was an introvert, unlike her.
  4. He liked complicated books she didn’t have patience for either.
  5. Loved the mystery tea recipe because he was prone to throat infections.



It was one of those relationships students liked imagining: Professor Agnieszka, for all her smartness and hardwork was also a gentle person. She was perfect for the romantic imagination for the fantasy of all of her students – she could be crushed on, and she could be thought of as someone else’s romantic fancy. She put flowers in her hair, she wrapped magic around herself like a shawl. She would bun her hair with whatever she could find: porcupine quills, twigs, pens, anything that was sharp. She wore long skirts and tank tops with jackets, scarves and comfortable boots. She lent herself well to the imagination: she laughed, she spoke, she was cheerful. It was nice to imagine her with a slightly cross man who loved her more than anyone could fathom. But what everyone looked forward to most about her were the fights she had with Professor Sarkan.

They were famously sharp minds, clever in different ways. They shared resources frequently, and it was well known that not only did Sarkan work with _no other_ magician as closely he did with Agnieszka, it was also well known that he also fought with her the most. Their shouting matches were loud and visible, angry and amazingly complex. She would complain about his method, or he would attack _hers,_ their work would be in smithereens somewhere – and eventually, both of them would calm down. The explosion was always a short one, but the heat simmered: strictly professional, of course, but always coarse. No one saw them afterwards, no one saw how they made up, but the next day, they would be back at work – no trace of terseness, or even of the anger. They put their fighting behind them so quickly, everyone wondered what kind of relationship they shared. Some of the TAs claimed that Professor Sarkan and Professor Agnieszka were friends – or _friendly,_ at the very least. No one was quite sure whether to believe that, since both of them were never really seen _together_ beyond their working relationship. A TA once swore that she had seen Agnieszka laughing as she put some flowers in Sarkan’s hair while he just looked exasperated, but no one, not even the first years believed her.

Which brings me back to the original thread of the conversation: the classes with the most clashes were Professor Sarkan’s and Professor Agnieszka’s. The students from each had something of a “friendly” rivalry which served no one and nothing, and students who ended up taking both classes would always find themselves torn between the battle lines that were drawn. People competed over the best research they could do in each, and both professors remained blissfully unaware. It was the methodology that everyone was bothered with: while Professor Sarkan’s classes would always produce the most number of research papers on theory, Professor Agnieszka thrived on praxis. Her work produced the most _results,_ and it was important to take her class at least once if you wanted to understand magic intrinsically and intuitively.

None were more opposite than these two professors: lying on completely different ends of the spectrum, in personality and magic. Everyone had decided that they weren’t _friends,_ not at all. They couldn’t be. It seemed impossible; they were polar opposites in every sense of the word, and no one had seen them exchange a civil word together.

And there were more important rumours to pay attention to. The nature of academia was such: with batches filled primarily with Doctorate students and Masters students, all the professors were under constant scrutiny. Everyone would have liked to know more about the people who taught them as real people, it was what fuels eighty percent of conversations in academia. Someone said Professor Solya had attempted to court Professor Kasia, and practically everyone lost their minds over that for some time. No one knew anything about Professor Alosha and no one bothered to, but you could sneak information off of Professor Kasia.

That’s where the whole thing had started: Professor Kasia mentioned that Professor Sarkan had a girlfriend.

Or a wife. But certainly something female, and certainly something romantic. The rumours flew within seconds, because all the TAs had to be consulted. Everyone wanted to know if it was true.

One of the TAs revealed that at times he had suspected as much, since he had seen Professor Sarkan’s office with flowers. Something about the décor had a slight feminine touch to it. Others had noticed that he seemed to have certain times cordoned off for reasons unknown, and got unnecessarily snappy about the _why._

“I pity the girl dating Professor Sarkan,” smirked someone. “Imagine having to deal with his ridiculous book collection.”

“And all that drama about dragons,” said one of his old TAs. “God help her, really.”

“I really wonder what kind of girl has the stomach for Professor Sarkan,” said a third person with a lot of relish. “Imagine if he sat her down every few months for an evaluation and gave her readings on how to correctly theorise the relationship?”

Most students had a poor opinion of Professor Sarkan in any sort of romantic capacity. Some always had a bit of a crush on him, because emotionally unavailable men were attractive to young women, but most of them grew out of it after he really _stayed_ emotionally unavailable. More information about the mystery girlfriend appeared eventually: apparently, it _was_ her ginger tea that he loved so much.

A lot of very clever sleuthing was done by one of the TAs to find out that she was also a magician. The other TA of that year had the sense to check his schedule more closely to find the gaps where he seemed to spend a lot of time free, but unfortunately, this lead was a dead end: all of those times found distinctly unromantic explanations. In fact, he seemed to be spending the most amount of time with Professor Agnieszka in the greenhouse they shared for common experiments.

There was a new competition for students to engage in: if anyone found out about Professor Sarkan’s imaginary girlfriend, the information was passed almost instantly. It was the sort of thing that occupied you from time to time to get you through your paper on “Death Magic: Ludovik’s Principles and Necromancy as Art.” The sort of thing you used to divert your mind at for some time. The sort of thing that eventually became a game of guessing just what _kind_ of person would have the courage to date the very prickly and extremely critical Professor Sarkan.

For once, it wasn’t Professor Agnieszka’s _whoever_ that was busy being imagined. She lent herself well to the romantic imagination of young students, but he? He was much better employed in thinking up just who the _other_ in his relationship would be. Everyone had unanimously decided that the girlfriend was the top in their relationship, everyone had also come to the conclusion that she must be just as fastidious about her academics. They all enjoyed thinking about the massive debate that must have ensued if Professor Sarkan ever found out that she preferred the Chicago format over the standard MLA.

The students spending time in both classes eventually had more important things to think about. The rush of exams and the coming of Christmas always had everyone on edge. Paper submissions, two thousand word book reviews, thesis presentations, PhD chapters that were yet to be submitted – everything that winter brought with it that was a flurry of work and stress. They were in the common greenhouse when it happened – when the whole thing was brought to light again.

A few weeks before holidays, and Professor Agnieszka already looked intensely festive. Everything about her was red. Professor Sarkan seemed to be fond of black and nothing else. Professor Sarkan was giving one of his dry rejoinders to everyone who had submitted an essay, and seemed to have also slashed everyone’s grades heavily –

“Everyone who wrote an essay on moonstones is going to be getting no more than a passing grade,” he said. “I don’t care how thoughtful and illuminating it was, I don’t want to see another essay on moonstones. The same rule applies to anyone writing on any kinds of potions. Please keep non-spellcasting magic for the non-casting –”

“Sarkan, may I have a word with you?”

Professor Agnieszka looked at some of the students. People were clearly close to tears – something that was fairly common during Professor Sarkan’s grading.

Everyone looked at her gratefully. There was precedent for it. In the common classes, at the very least, Professor Agnieszka was able to influence Sarkan enough to give them fair grades.

They went into the office at the corner of the greenhouse, and the hushed whisper of Professor Agnieszka could be heard reprimanding him. Everyone sighed in relief, and sure enough: in a few minutes, their grades had changed to at least _one_ higher.

That night, everyone collected in the bar for a drink.

“I swear, we wouldn’t have a place in the university were it not for her. He’d have us booted out,” said a girl as she swilled her drink. She was contemplating her poor decisions to do her experiment on moonstones, but hopefully, Professor Agnieszka wouldn’t be as harsh as Professor Sarkan.

“A good time for his girlfriend,” said one of the boys who had written an essay on moonstones. “She ought to have our grades upped.”

“He’s not loveable,” said someone else a little vehemently. “It’s a rumour that we’ve made to make him seem more human.”

“And to stop us from going insane,” added someone else.

“Maybe we should set him up with someone,” suggested another girl, downing her fourth drink. “It’ll mellow him out.”

“Ha!” said the person who had been swilling her drink. “Set him up with Professor Agnieszka. She’s the only one who can control him.”

“Doesn’t she have a boyfriend?” sniggered someone.

“What _boyfriend?_ She never _speaks_ of her life, and he’s _worse._ Force them to be friends or something. The rest will follow. Also who the hell _knows_ what she has – it’s always confusing, and as far as I’m concerned, there’s no wedding band.”

Boy meets world, one of the greatest narrative engines for nosy people living in embarrassingly limited environments, was going to be employed for a romantic hero who had no intentions of being romantic. Not only were there enough people for this to become an earnest effort on the part of the students, there were even a few _sober_ ones.

Over the next few months, Professor Agnieszka was asked multiple times during some of her rambles to explain her relationship to some of her colleagues. Although she feigned a kind of stupidity and spoke only of her best friend Kasia, it was very clear what the raised eyebrows meant to everyone. There were also increased efforts to have her talk about him in a one on one capacity. Everyone seemed keen on giving them a lot of time after their common classes, which baffled her no end.

On the other end of the spectrum, Professor Sarkan was found with Professor Agnieszka more. No one dared actually asking hihusbm his opinion on her, but they mentioned her more. They mentioned her work more. All the professors in the staff room were confused, because the greatest rivalry of the university seemed to have disappeared in the span of a few weeks – and before the _holidays,_ too! This was when everyone was competing neck to neck over who had better grades in each of the classes and the research that had the most impact on everyone. The staff room was rife with grins and questions:

“Your students go soft, Sarkan?” asked Proctor Vladimir with a smile.

Sarkan grunted.

“Aren’t you upset about it, Agnieszka?” prodded Kasia.

“I just want to know what happened to stop them,” said Agnieszka. “It’s very unlike them, I suspect some sort of foul play.”

“That’s nonsense,” said Sarkan dismissively. “I’m sure they’ve just grown up. They had to at some point.”

“Don’t be too sure,” said Agnieszka warningly. “They’re a cheeky bunch. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were trying to make me get them better grades or something.”

She was close to the mark, but not close enough.

There was a roaring trade in just how much potential good could be done if they were actually dating. Everyone was praying for better than passing grades, and the more ambitious ones had thought to themselves that they could even aim for As. But more importantly, instead of thinking up how to write their essays and finish their assignments, students were busy actually contemplating how cute it might be if they _should_ date. Poles apart, but so similar. Completely different, but so sharp. They could be really adorable, cooed some. They could be really advantageous to us, grinned others. They could actually be good together, said the ones who had some measure of their personalities.

If Agnieszka had a boyfriend, he had conveniently been forgotten in the stream of things. They didn’t seem keen on spending time on this imaginary nobody that she had never actually said that much about. And no wedding band, so it wasn’t permanent in any case. Everyone _loved_ the story of two people who fought a lot coming together romantically – it was a universal constant.

Eventually, their effort paid off a little because of the two of them, Professor Agnieszka _did_ stumble. She seemed to be more wary with their increased effort to have her opinion on Professor Sarkan known, but eventually, whatever did come together seemed to be the emotion of exasperation. They were expecting more violent feelings: perhaps hatred and anger – maybe even a rivalry as strong as the one that was shared between their students. But what was collated from whatever little Agnieszka gave away was this:

  1. Professor Sarkan was prone to bad throat infections.
  2. He was grumpy and annoying, which exasperated her.
  3. Was a better cook than her.



This last fact blew everyone away. She clarified that he was good at fancy recipes which she had no patience for, but _still._

The whole debate ended far more abruptly than anyone was expecting. And with a lot less satisfaction than anyone was expecting. It was one of the last common classes before the holidays, and they were having one of their telltale arguments.

“No – we _cannot_ make that _big_ an illusion _and_ make it real, Agnieszka!”

“Yes we can! We were able to then.”

“It made no _sense_ then –” he said, and coughed vehemently.

“Oh for _heaven’s_ sake Sarkan!”

She grabbed his hand, and a few students looked taken aback. The wind stirred inside the greenhouse even as they both began to spell magic again.

“We’re going to require more effort,” said Professor Agnieszka with effort. “Everyone join in. I’ll guide you.”

Professor Sarkan snorted.

The students joined in. The illusion spell they were practicing began to grow and bloom. Flowers grew, almost real, meshed together as Professor Agnieszka guided them intuitively. Everyone’s magic was so different – but the illusion was _huge._ She shaped it carefully: each element, each bit of magic mixing together like a giant stream across mills. Everyone manned their post, and the flowers shifted from illusion to real.

Professor Sarkan was looking shocked and angry, but that was nothing _new._ He frequently was when he worked with Professor Agnieszka. She laughed at his expression, and everyone raised their eyebrows. “We should stop now, because I’m fairly certain this is very unstable,” she said. “Slowly, everyone.”

Everyone followed her. The reality of the flowers and the vines had become almost too much: the greenhouse was scented, and you could hear the leaves throb.

Sarkan coughed again. “Fine!” he declared, throwing his hands up. “But we’re going to be more careful when we try that next time. Groups of _five,_ only!”

“Alright,” soothed Professor Agnieszka. “I’ll make you tea.”

“The ginger one,” he said. If they had known him better, they would have known he was grumpy and cross.

“Your favourite,” said Agnieszka. She turned to the office door.

There was a small beat of silence.

One of the students asked in a small voice before Agnieszka left, “Professor Agnieszka, is this the secret tea recipe of yours?”

“Oh, yes,” said Professor Agnieszka. “Sarkan’s favourite, you know. Has been for God knows how many years.”

He glared at her. “Twenty years,” he said. He snapped his messenger bag shut and seemed to turn to join her at the door.

“You’ve been friends for twenty years?” asked someone.

“Goodness, no. We’ve known each other for half a century or something. We’ve only been married for twenty,” said Professor Agnieszka.

And she and Professor Sarkan disappeared behind the office door.

The silence amongst the remaining students was defeating. It went on for minutes and minutes, until someone said in a voice of shock and awe:

“Professor Sarkan _dances?”_

**Author's Note:**

> As always: I adore reviews!


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